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Knights of the Range
used western novel
Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
63 people are currently reading
207 people want to read
About the author
Zane Grey
2,087 books591 followersPearl Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
March 24, 2015
One of the things a lot of people overlook is Zane Grey often showed the ignorance of racism and sexism in his stories by having one character voice the racist or sexist comment and then have the one subjected to the comment show them wrong.
It's been a long time since I read Knights of the Range but I remember the girl in the story was strong and not afraid to fight for what is hers. She loved passionately and lived high wide and grand...and it was her love that saved the outlaw. Maybe Grey wouldn't sell today with everything rated X if you want to sell a book....but let there be no doubt his men and women were real flesh and blood characters that he loved.
Zane Grey knew how to write about the land...and the land was as much a part of the story as the people.
It's been a long time since I read Knights of the Range but I remember the girl in the story was strong and not afraid to fight for what is hers. She loved passionately and lived high wide and grand...and it was her love that saved the outlaw. Maybe Grey wouldn't sell today with everything rated X if you want to sell a book....but let there be no doubt his men and women were real flesh and blood characters that he loved.
Zane Grey knew how to write about the land...and the land was as much a part of the story as the people.
March 14, 2022
I read all of Zane Grey books when I was 12 or 13 and my dad and I shared them. I had not read them for decades but still have the books. This past year I read all 40 or so of them again, one after the other. I realized(I am 79) that what I got out of these books as an already horse crazy girl led me to a life in the west, some of it in the states Zane Grey covers in his book of the late 1800's and early 1900's. I've lived on ranches in Utah and Colorado which made them even more special. Knowing that this author's books written in the early 1900's had actually met and interviewed people alive in those times makes them more authentic. But about this particular book:
This one is about a ranch - horses, cattle, cowboys, awesome country that the author describes so well. The story is a romance, but not like romances written today. It's clean and anyone reading this book and the others has to realize it is a different time, different world than the one we are in today. If one reads it thinking of society today, you will lose the reality of what life was like in America over 100 years ago. "Making love" meant talking about love. A Kiss was a big deal and going any farther made a girl "bad" or ruined. Women were a huge minority in the west and the wives and daughters of these pioneers were desired but very much respected. A whole different world than any of us alive today ever knew. The Knights of the Range are a bunch of cowboys hired for their abilities, toughness and skill with guns. The ranch in the story must have the wildest toughest riders ever for it to survive. I fell in love with all of them as a young teen and now as a grandmother. The main story is of the rancher's daughter after her father dies and the gunfighter who is hired to lead these cowboys. But there is a side character, if you can call him that, the wildest cowboy,Brazos, who I wanted to read more about And at the last page, in my little girl handwriting it said, "Read Brazos story in Twin Sombreros next". I went through the stack of books and found it! So much history of our west written by someone who was alive at a time he could talk to people who experienced it. He romanticized it but that just makes this book and the others not a dry history.
This one is about a ranch - horses, cattle, cowboys, awesome country that the author describes so well. The story is a romance, but not like romances written today. It's clean and anyone reading this book and the others has to realize it is a different time, different world than the one we are in today. If one reads it thinking of society today, you will lose the reality of what life was like in America over 100 years ago. "Making love" meant talking about love. A Kiss was a big deal and going any farther made a girl "bad" or ruined. Women were a huge minority in the west and the wives and daughters of these pioneers were desired but very much respected. A whole different world than any of us alive today ever knew. The Knights of the Range are a bunch of cowboys hired for their abilities, toughness and skill with guns. The ranch in the story must have the wildest toughest riders ever for it to survive. I fell in love with all of them as a young teen and now as a grandmother. The main story is of the rancher's daughter after her father dies and the gunfighter who is hired to lead these cowboys. But there is a side character, if you can call him that, the wildest cowboy,Brazos, who I wanted to read more about And at the last page, in my little girl handwriting it said, "Read Brazos story in Twin Sombreros next". I went through the stack of books and found it! So much history of our west written by someone who was alive at a time he could talk to people who experienced it. He romanticized it but that just makes this book and the others not a dry history.
December 28, 2020
Pros: breathtaking descriptions of the beautiful American southwest of the mid-1800s; exciting action in the final 1/4 of the book.
Cons: rather tedious romance throughout the rest of the story; despicable racial stereotypes common to the era. I gather these cons are typical of Zane Grey’s books, so I doubt I’ll read any more from him.
This was the first western I’ve ever read. If I can find an author that is as skilled in the positive aspects of Grey’s books, but eliminates the negatives, I may read another western one day.
Cons: rather tedious romance throughout the rest of the story; despicable racial stereotypes common to the era. I gather these cons are typical of Zane Grey’s books, so I doubt I’ll read any more from him.
This was the first western I’ve ever read. If I can find an author that is as skilled in the positive aspects of Grey’s books, but eliminates the negatives, I may read another western one day.
March 4, 2020
This was fun to read. It brought back memories of the time Western was a favorite genre to read, how many years ago?
If there is a time where time does not matter much, get this book and read it. I'll be laughing out loud many time!
Zane Grey is a very good writer. I have immediately searched the web and found an another book which I started reading. But the other one is very different, nevertheless, also very good.
If there is a time where time does not matter much, get this book and read it. I'll be laughing out loud many time!
Zane Grey is a very good writer. I have immediately searched the web and found an another book which I started reading. But the other one is very different, nevertheless, also very good.
February 7, 2018
If you appreciate westerns here is an enjoyable and entertain story. Engaging, enjoyable, and a quick read. Recommended it.
December 26, 2019
Not only has this book put me off from ever reding Zane Grey again, it's put me off from reading Westerns. At first, Knights of the Range was so bad, it's funny in a Plan 9 From Outer Space kind of way, but then it just got to be annoying. I tried to find the cover on Google Images so you know what to avoid, but couldn't. Shows you that no one cared to take a picture of the cover and put it online, the book was so bad.
Most of the plot twists were lifted directly from the last Zane Grey book I'd read not too long ago called Wild Horse Mesa, including a problematic romance. I swear that some of the dialogue was directly lifted, too, but that would take time to compare and I just turned 50 and don't have the time left in my life to spare to check up on these things.
Most of the action is through dialoge or happens "off stage" -- such as one cowboy telling another of the excting shoot-out that happened earlier in the day. Well, it sounded a lot more exciting than just reading one heavily accented, bizarrely punctuated version from the lucky-to-be-alive cowboy. I'm all for local accents, but when trying to reproduce them makes it too hard to read, then what's the point? The accent of the ranch foreman was spelled in a way that I was sure he was Scottish (hey, America is a land of immagrants, after all) and only later did I find out the foreman was supposed to be speaking in a Texas drawl.
Yippe ki yi yah, laddie.
Most of the plot twists were lifted directly from the last Zane Grey book I'd read not too long ago called Wild Horse Mesa, including a problematic romance. I swear that some of the dialogue was directly lifted, too, but that would take time to compare and I just turned 50 and don't have the time left in my life to spare to check up on these things.
Most of the action is through dialoge or happens "off stage" -- such as one cowboy telling another of the excting shoot-out that happened earlier in the day. Well, it sounded a lot more exciting than just reading one heavily accented, bizarrely punctuated version from the lucky-to-be-alive cowboy. I'm all for local accents, but when trying to reproduce them makes it too hard to read, then what's the point? The accent of the ranch foreman was spelled in a way that I was sure he was Scottish (hey, America is a land of immagrants, after all) and only later did I find out the foreman was supposed to be speaking in a Texas drawl.
Yippe ki yi yah, laddie.
July 11, 2016
Fantasy author Jim Hines recently wrote a blog post about how 'Jupiter Ascending' wasn't really a sci-fi movie, but a fairly tale with spaceships. I can't tell you if this was the Wachoskis intent, but that change of context helped in my enjoyment of that film.
The transporting of classic story tropes into the Western setting has resulted in some epic cowboy classics; 'The Magnificent Seven', 'A Fistful of Dollars'. And now, after completing it, 'Knights of The Range'.
Holly Ripple, a young, headstrong woman, brought up in the upscale boarding schools of the east, has inherited her family's cattle ranch in 1870s New Mexico, after the sudden death of her father. With the help of the ranch foreman and Renn Frayne, a newly hired hand; a outlaw seeking redemption, they organize a assorted group of cowboys to protect the herd, and the safety of their ranch, from rustlers, competing cattle barons, and other assorted villains.
Change 'ranch' to 'kingdom', and 'cowboy' to 'knights' and you get the idea.
The context switch aside, I enjoyed the scope and story telling. I found myself not being offended by some of the racist language. Having been originally written in 1939, it's probably a better depiction of the language as spoken in the American West. Grey depicts Miss Ripple's band of cowboys as essentially decent men; loyal, both to her and to each other.
Though not the most well known of Grey's works, this is a great introduction to the Western genre, along with 'Taggart' by Louis Lamour
The transporting of classic story tropes into the Western setting has resulted in some epic cowboy classics; 'The Magnificent Seven', 'A Fistful of Dollars'. And now, after completing it, 'Knights of The Range'.
Holly Ripple, a young, headstrong woman, brought up in the upscale boarding schools of the east, has inherited her family's cattle ranch in 1870s New Mexico, after the sudden death of her father. With the help of the ranch foreman and Renn Frayne, a newly hired hand; a outlaw seeking redemption, they organize a assorted group of cowboys to protect the herd, and the safety of their ranch, from rustlers, competing cattle barons, and other assorted villains.
Change 'ranch' to 'kingdom', and 'cowboy' to 'knights' and you get the idea.
The context switch aside, I enjoyed the scope and story telling. I found myself not being offended by some of the racist language. Having been originally written in 1939, it's probably a better depiction of the language as spoken in the American West. Grey depicts Miss Ripple's band of cowboys as essentially decent men; loyal, both to her and to each other.
Though not the most well known of Grey's works, this is a great introduction to the Western genre, along with 'Taggart' by Louis Lamour
May 31, 2016
A fine novel from a classic Western writer, first serialised in 1936. The story is well laid out, with a lot of traditional old-school western mythology in it's background and speech patterns. There is some casual use of racist language that, while unacceptable today, was probably common at the time of writing, along with stereotyping that goes with it. In mitigation, the black character against whom this is directed, is not only a sympathetic character, but also takes deadly revenge against the main perpetrator. Very enjoyable, and recommended to any regular readers of Grey.
September 19, 2022
To state the obvious, Zane Grey was never a talented writer. The key to his success lay in his wife, who encouraged him to pursue writing, and acted as his primary editor and agent alongside raising their children. In this late novel, Zane has trotted out all the formula devices developed in his three decades of churning out westerns and he writes like someone who knows that the book will sell like hotcakes just because it has his name on it. Overlong and prone to cliche, this wasn't an enjoyable book. Zane was regularly capable of interesting writing, and creating real jeopardy. Some of his novels are rightfully classics, but books like this reveal just how lazy he could be, and how tedious Dolly's job must have been cutting back his tortured prose before sending it off to the publishers. So this is a paycheck novel, something to pay for Zane's ever increasing appetite for global travel, writing about fishing, and buying houses for his many mistresses.
One thing that did stand out as a novelty to me while reading this book, was Zane falling prey to the 1930s fascination with Dialect Humor. I don't recall dialect featuring quite so centrally, or being so broadly distributed in other of his novels, but it may just be because I haven't read much in this late stage of his career. Let's just say that it is jarring to be reading along through pages of description and dialogue presented in standard spelling and grammar, just to arrive at some important inflection point in the tale and suddenly have to parse through a passage of Britt's Texan accent, or worse, Zane's phonetic presentation of Jackson's dialogue which is the worst kind of minstrel show rubber-lipped Negro parody imaginable. A lot is made of how ethnically diverse and egalitarian the 'Knights of the Range" are as a group, and how each stands upon his dignity, but (Jackson aside) this is the most shallow gesture at diversity casting. The protagonist heroes are the usual group of steely Anglo-Americans, and their dominance of the team is unchallenged. With the exception of Jackson, the only time mentions of the group of knights is allowed to pull focus off of the four leaders are a passing mention of Cherokee's stoicism, and a necessary interlude concerning Skylark's marriage. Everyone else may as well not be there. Meanwhile, the romance at the center of this Ranch Romance is supremely unconvincing and irritating.
Anyway, I figure this as better than the usual genre Western of the age, but not a real effort by the author.
One thing that did stand out as a novelty to me while reading this book, was Zane falling prey to the 1930s fascination with Dialect Humor. I don't recall dialect featuring quite so centrally, or being so broadly distributed in other of his novels, but it may just be because I haven't read much in this late stage of his career. Let's just say that it is jarring to be reading along through pages of description and dialogue presented in standard spelling and grammar, just to arrive at some important inflection point in the tale and suddenly have to parse through a passage of Britt's Texan accent, or worse, Zane's phonetic presentation of Jackson's dialogue which is the worst kind of minstrel show rubber-lipped Negro parody imaginable. A lot is made of how ethnically diverse and egalitarian the 'Knights of the Range" are as a group, and how each stands upon his dignity, but (Jackson aside) this is the most shallow gesture at diversity casting. The protagonist heroes are the usual group of steely Anglo-Americans, and their dominance of the team is unchallenged. With the exception of Jackson, the only time mentions of the group of knights is allowed to pull focus off of the four leaders are a passing mention of Cherokee's stoicism, and a necessary interlude concerning Skylark's marriage. Everyone else may as well not be there. Meanwhile, the romance at the center of this Ranch Romance is supremely unconvincing and irritating.
Anyway, I figure this as better than the usual genre Western of the age, but not a real effort by the author.
September 23, 2020
Every now and then, I like to lose myself in a western. There are no ambiguities or uncertainties in westerns, and this one was no different. The bad guys lose, one good guy gets the girl and the other rides off, disappointed, sad but proud. Zane Grey adds beautiful, vivid descriptions of the countryside which almost makes you feel like you are there. I really enjoyed going back in time to a simpler historic time. This is a really good book.
September 7, 2019
Zane is one of the best, if not the best, western writers there ever was. His writing flows and his characters are fleshed out and real. The Knights of the Range is a beautiful western romance that describes the landscape of New Mexico and its colorful characters and details of the cattle trade. If you like westerns, I’d highly recommend this book.
November 21, 2021
Extremely racist and sexist. I picked up it up at a library used book sale with hopes of a story about an independent cowgirl but no, she is a fragile male construct to be handled delicately and simultaneously rescued from her own instincts while be treated as naïve and sheltered. Reconstruction of American history to make the white males superior to all …. Don’t waste your time.
October 30, 2021
Liked this much more than the sequel. Holly Ripple and Renn Frayne: good characters. A couple of great scenes : finding the rustlers, hanging them, finding a favorite cowboy has been shot, helping him die with dignity. Cool. Might read more Zane Grey!
September 1, 2023
Great description of the times
The cattlemens' viewpoint of the times was intriguing. The Indian wars, the lawlessness, and the brutality. However, the writing style is a bit long-winded and dated.
The cattlemens' viewpoint of the times was intriguing. The Indian wars, the lawlessness, and the brutality. However, the writing style is a bit long-winded and dated.
October 27, 2024
Still one of my favorite books
I am 77 years old. I think I read the book for the first time when I was a teenager. I've lost track of how many times I've read it. It's still thrills me. What a writer!
I am 77 years old. I think I read the book for the first time when I was a teenager. I've lost track of how many times I've read it. It's still thrills me. What a writer!
June 29, 2018
My opinion, but the best mix of Classic Western and appropriate romance. A rare 5 star.
Takes place in new Mexico for a change. Includes 'facts' about it's getting settled.
Takes place in new Mexico for a change. Includes 'facts' about it's getting settled.
February 19, 2023
Just can't get into Zane Grey (even if he did come fishing in the Fl Keys).
August 10, 2023
Still awesome after all these years
Zane Grey, got me hooked nigh on 60 years ago. I believe I've read all his novels 2 or 3 times.
Zane Grey, got me hooked nigh on 60 years ago. I believe I've read all his novels 2 or 3 times.
December 29, 2023
Magnificent writer! Would highly recommend to anyone who loves western literature!
January 24, 2025
This one was fun. If you are looking for a fun classic western with some entertaining characters and a little action here and there, look ye no further.
February 27, 2025
Boring
October 11, 2025
wow. glad that’s over.
March 25, 2024
I loved Holly and her Knights of the Range! Zane Grey’s books may be a hundred years old, but they are a truly fascinating glimpse into the past.
November 27, 2016
A great western saga!
This is one more prime example of Zane Grey's talent, he has a flair for descriptive writing and can put you in the events depicted. I appreciate the moral value and heart touching romance and color of Mr. Grey's stories, they indelibly make a memory worth pondering....
This is one more prime example of Zane Grey's talent, he has a flair for descriptive writing and can put you in the events depicted. I appreciate the moral value and heart touching romance and color of Mr. Grey's stories, they indelibly make a memory worth pondering....
November 23, 2016
Just wonderful, what a forgotten gem by a great storyteller! Moving 6,000 head of cattle through the Australian outback in the mid 1800's. Beautiful travelogue of a raw, unforgiving, beautiful continent.
May 21, 2010
I read a Zane Grey western once before that was really derogatory to the Mormons. It was not a good book. This one was a better story, but still not very good writing.
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